Around here they started selling E85, 85% ethanol. It is 60 cents
cheaper than real gas. Any reason this won't work just fine in my
first gen?

I was thinking a wankel could run on anything

 

I've been burning ethanol in my '79 for many years. But I think ours is only 10% ethanol. I would bet your is actually 15% ethanol, 85% gasoline.

Rich

 

No its 85% ethanol, 15% gas. They are intended for FFV's. Flex fuel vehicles. Ford, honda, GM all have a few models you can ask for the option at no extra cost. Major drawback is energy content is 81,000BTU's/gallon. Gasoline is ~114,000BTU's/gallon. Hence, you must meter in much more E85 then gasoline. The positive is E85 is 105octane, if you run turbo'd, detonation has more of a cushion. You have to re-jet to make it run correctly, or run larger fuel injectors-or more on time. Much larger accerator pump metering of fuel is necessary to avoid hesitation in a carb.

However, you think this will save you money, you are incorrect unless its about 90cents or cheaper then gasoline when you average out the cost of a BTU's gas vs BTU's E85.

Example: $3.00 gallon gas 114,000BTU's in a gallon = 380BTU's per $0.01

$2.40 gallon E85 81,000BTU's in a gallon = 337BTU's per $0.01

So E85 would have to cost $2.13 gallon to equal the energy purchased when regular gasoline is $3.00 gallon. That is what many people forget. Usually they raise the price of E85 at the same rate as gasoline, so you never get a savings! Ethanol is heavily subisized unfortunately, and it takes more energy to make it then gasoline. It takes 2,000BTU's of energy to refine gasoline, and about 50,000BTU's to produce pure ethanol!

 

Good info Wacky...thanks for the info!

Rich

 

Damn Wacky! How can you be so damn smart and informative on a Saturday morning? Have you no life? lol good info man.

 

I am in Minnesota, the main hub of Ethanol production. I also have some schooling with automotive engineering technology that has address the subject of E85.

I have mixed feeling about E85, because its NOT as efficient to produce then gasoline as my main concern. If ethanol production becomes better at producing this fuel and takes less corn/corn by-products to make it to produce a lot of it, then my feelings will change. Right now, you need a lot of acres of corn to produce the eqivilant in gasoline. There just won't be enough of it produced to ditch gasoline all together. The main thing that is politically driven/gas station or fuel delievery to the gas station apparrently that pisses me off ->is that stations raise the price PARELLEL with gasoline, even though it should go up only 15% the rate of regular gasoline! So, untill that is addressed, I can't justify using it if I get less BTU's for the same cost of gasoline..

 

On a turbo rotary, running E85 is a very good idea. It's very detonation resistant and will lower your exhaust temps around 70-80C. Have never tried it on a rotary, but will soon. My experience is based mainly on turbo audi 5-cyl engines. We are now running this stuff instead of high octane racing fuel with much better results.

Regards,
Frode

 

what kind of air/fuel ratios would you shoot for with e85?
n/a, turbo?

 

Seems to me that with this stuff you will have to use an exhaust temp probe to tune by, watcha think?

kenn

PS even if kenn_chan+ wild turkey = i still will kill myself before I ever buy another Honda.

 

i did some more reading and it looks like they say somewhere around 7:1ish...

but is that lambda, or where you'd WANT to run it under boost? one of my buddies just asked me if i could convert his car over just for more power (and it's $2/gal where he lives).

i was like sure, i'll try anything once--just lemme do my homework on it.
so anyone in socal that's tuned with this stuff before wanna help me out? maybe kinda teach me as we go...

 

aim for around 12:1 under boost, and be ready to put some $ into your ignition system if youre boosted (it can be a little har to light the plugs when you get pressure in the chambers with this fuel)

 

as far as plugs are concerned, 9s or 10's still ok?

~450ish whp

 

10's should be fine with a high power cdi ignition

 

i know my wideband has diesel and alcohol settings...i wonder if it has an e85 setting.

 

Build the car just like it's going to run on alcohol. Double the injector size, double the fuel pump capacity, double the regulator capacity, etc. You will use nearly twice as much E85 as gasoline if performance is the goal. With a rotary you'll have to run premix as the OMP will not provide enough oil. The alcohol will wash down the chambers and you'll tear up the housings and apex seals. I'd use Red Line alcohol fuel lube along with normal 2 troke as pre-mix I believe it was Ford that developed a special engine oil for thier FFVs, but that may have been to deal with the corrosive nature of M85 rather than E85.

If you're running a carb you might as well just throw the stocker away and get an alcohol calibrated Holley and drop it on a Racing Beat intake. The stock carb doesn't have passages large enough to flow the quantity of alcohol needed, the accelerator pump is too small, etc, etc.

So who still thinks this is a good idea for economy? Anyone?

If you want to read more about fuels try this:
http://www.turbofast.com.au/racefuel.html

 

he was selling me on it being $2/gallon where he lives, but we're gonna end up dumping $1k+ into the fuel system. it already did 400 whp on pump gas.

100 octane would be more than fine for the 450-475 he wants. how many miles is he gonna have to drive for the lower fuel cost to make up the $1k+ fuel system?

your point is well seen!

 

ethanol is alcohol
you can drink it if you dare! 170 proof, woot!

so guitar, just run the setting for alky... and then avg it with gasoline, 85% alky, 15% gas

 

if we gotta do the whole fuel system like that, might as well run top fuel

 

And at $2 a gallon, using twice as much, it would be more expensive that gasoline....